The blue marsh hawk belong to the dragonfly family of skimmers, and are conspicuous with their blue thorax and tail.

Dragonflies, especially the males of some species, are also territorial in nature. Research shows that among some marsh skimmers, the males with longer hind wings have an upper hand in winning territorial conflicts.

Species: orthetrum glaucaum, Family: libellulidae

Here are a few other skimmers from our earlier articles:

Pied Paddy Skimmer, neurothemis tullia

Fulvous Forest Skimmer, neurothemis fulvia

 Common Picture Wing, rhyothemis variegata variegata

Reference: 
Kasuya E., Mashima Y., Hirokawa J. 1987 Reproductive behavior of the dragonfly, Orthetrum japonicum (Odonata: Libellulidae). Journal of ethology 5(2), 105-113.

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A pretty damsel adorning a bridal veil.

The veiled lady, or the bridal veil stinkhorn as it is popularly known, belongs to the fungi family of stinkhorns. A mature stinkhorn has a phallic structure which is about 10-15cm high and with a cap on top, skirted with a net/membrane (indusium), and hence its scientific name, phallus indusiatus. The veiled lady mushroom is edible, and enjoys an elite status for its medicinal and aphrodisiac properties. Indeed, an obscure study states that the smell emanating from these mushrooms can trigger spontaneous orgasms in human females!

Insects and ants are attracted to the odoriferous viscous slime (known as gleba) from the cap above, which contains the fungi spores for reproduction. This ensures an efficient dispersal of the spores for regeneration elsewhere, for a mushroom which is alive only for a few hours or days.

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The plain tiger enjoys a celebrity status of being the first butterfly in the recorded history. It was depicted in a painting, with its distinct colors and patterns, in the tomb of Nebamun in Egypt, circa 1350 BCE – that’s more than 3300 years before!

It’s a tiger not merely in its stripes and colors. It is a terror to potential predators too! Their bodies contain toxic alkaloids from plants, which they have devoured as a larvae. Birds and predators memorize and associate the unsavoriness of these butterfly species with their patterns and habits, and try to avoid them. This, in turn, is found to have evolutionary consequences in other “edible” butterflies, which ended up mimicing similar colors and patterns in order to escape from the predators.

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It’s world sparrow day today, 20th March. Sparrows have been those winged companions of humans for a long time. Over the recent years there has been a sharp decline in the sparrow sightings though- probably owing to the mindless advancement of their human companions?

Here are some images from our kitchen window, and ideas on how you can re-friend a sparrow.

A female house sparrow feeding a juvenile.
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Crimson marsh gliders are crimson, and frequent visitors to marshlands.

Well, it is the male who is crimson, and the female (below) adorns totally different colors.
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